Monday, January 4, 2010

How to Care for a Sick Child: Part 1

Children don’t just get sick, they come down with horrific illnesses that they spread to everyone around them. Kids are the human equivalent of Petri dishes, if Petri dishes rubbed themselves on contaminated surfaces and then coughed in your face. Children are constantly sick and their parents are constantly sick with/because of them. As a result, parents tend to fit into one of two camps: ignore illnesses until they’re so major your family threatens to call the police or visit the emergency room every time your child sneezes.

If you are of the former camp, the next few postings are for you. Today, I present part 1: Taking Your Child to the Hospital.

Your child is sick and you can no longer ignore the signs. Sure, it started as a little extra gunk in the eyes, but it grew until your kid had to spend the day with both eyes glued shut. You couldn’t wait any longer, so you called the clinic and got the next available appointment (a week from next Wednesday). Now it’s time to take your child to the doctor but you don’t know what to do.

Go to the pediatrics department.• Show your child the toy train in the glass case.• Help child find button to make the train work.• Explain to child that the train fell off the track, but that he or she should keep pushing the button while you stand in line.

Check in.• Go to the end of the check-in line.• Notice your child throwing magazines out of the rack.• Run to put magazines in rack.• Go to the end of the check-in line.• Notice your child has wandered away from “pediatrics” and is headed toward a department that looks suspiciously like “pedophiles.” Return with child.• Go back to the end of the check-in line.• Repeat until your child is distracted long enough for you to get to the front of the line.• Check in with assistant.

Wait to be called by nurse.• Entertain child with books.• Entertain child with toys.• Entertain child by encouraging play with other children.• Entertain child with whatever daytime television is playing on the monitors.• Entertain child with container of snacks.• Clean all non-raisin snacks from the ground while resolving never to put the raisins at the bottom of the container again.• Go back to check-in line and ask how much longer you have to wait.• Find out they had forgotten about you.• Ask where the “homicide” department is.• Get called by nurse.

Consult with doctor.• Place child on plastic reclining scale.• Restrain child with both hands while trying to keep him from jumping off scale or screaming.• Take child to standing scale.• Distract child from thermometer while doctor takes temperature.• Distract child from stethoscope while doctor listens to chest.• Distract child from light while doctor examines eyes.• When doctor offers box of stickers, remove some the child will like best so child won’t infect the entire box. Watch as your child lurches forward and grabs a clump of princess stickers anyway.• Put the box back, hoping the doctor hasn’t noticed.• Watch your child throw the stickers in the air.